WHAT AWAITS US IN 2020? - by James Tharp

It is nearly always exciting to welcome a new year. But what awaits us as we face the new year of 2020 should be seriously and heavily on the hearts of every Christian believer!

We live in a troubled America. We live in a divided America. We should realize that we cannot trust our educators, politicians, or statesmen to lead us out of our spiritual, moral, social, and political darkness. Why did the Church grow so weak and the world so wicked over the last 75 years?

Before we blame the unbelievers and the unchurched for the mess we are in, we had better think about something Jesus warned His believers about. In Matthew’s Gospel (chapter 5, verse 13) Jesus said to His believers, “You are the salt of the earth, but if the salt loses its flavor, how shall it be seasoned?” Actually, Jesus used two symbols to describe the influence that Christians are to have on preserving a community or a nation. There are certain foods that require salt to give the flavor needed to make it palatable. And salt is also a preserver. Before we had iceboxes and refrigerators, salt was one of the main means of preserving.

And then in Matthew’s Gospel (chapter 5, verse 14) Jesus tells us that we Christians are “the light of the world.” Just as the moon reflects the light of the sun onto the darkened side of the earth, so the Church is to reflect the love of Jesus as the Son of righteousness to the darkened world in which we live. We Christians are to be like a city that is set on a hill. We are to shine for Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord. We are to so live as to be winsome—full of love and good will—and help those who are willing to believe to become light also in their homes, churches, and communities.


My Christian brothers and sisters, we have just got to realize it—the reason the Church is so weak today is because so many professing Christians are not living in the power of the Holy Spirit. All too many know little or nothing about the fullness of the Holy Spirit. Of course, we receive the Holy Spirit when we repent of sin, believe in Jesus, and are saved. The Holy Spirit is a given in the new birth experience.  But as we begin to pray and grow in Christ, temptations test us, and we begin to realize that we need more power for staying true to Christ. That’s when we should ask God to fill us with the Holy Spirit. We have the promise in Luke’s Gospel, chapter 11, verse 13: we read that if a father knows how to give good gifts to his children, “how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!” And then we hear Jesus in that same chapter (verse 9) saying, “So I say to you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.” The weak and powerless Christian must become determined to totally surrender to Christ and be filled with the Spirit in order to overcome the world, the flesh, and the devil.

Why would our Sovereign God not want to close out the Church Age with the greatest revival in all of Church history? I believe it is high time for all Christian churches to get serious about the Spirit-filled life. But I remind us: this will mean sincere heart-searching, repentance, and sacrificial praying and fasting. We must pray that the promise of Christ will become a reality in more and more believers in all of our churches. The great revival needed will bring back the fire that Jesus promised. In Luke’s Gospel (chapter 12, verse 49) He declares, “I came to send fire on the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled!” Of course, He had in mind the kind of fire that John the Baptist referred to when He promised that Jesus would baptize His believers with the Holy Spirit and fire. Fire is a symbol of both cleansing and judgment. We must experience the fire of Pentecost. It’s not wild fire; it’s Holy Fire!

Before we can see the great revival needed at this late hour of church history, we must have many more prayer warriors—men and women who are filled with the Spirit and who have learned to pray in the Spirit. May God give millions an ear to hear His call to prevailing prayer, Christians who know how to put on the whole armor of God and take up the weapons God provides which He promises will quench all the flaming darts of the evil one if we are praying in the Spirit with all prayer and supplication.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, I would remind us that time is running out! We must make up our minds to consecrate ourselves to God for meeting His conditions for a mighty spiritual awakening!  We must pray to pass the kind of revival that brings about a national epidemic of repentance and a fear of God that leads to confession of sin and saving faith in our Lord Jesus Christ!

As I recall, five of the seven churches addressed by the Lord in the book of Revelation were commanded to repent. That same call will be going out to the slumbering millions of cold-hearted, professing Christians in the American churches if many of us love God enough to obey His call to join His praying armies. This would bring about a nationwide conviction of saints and sinners—with the saints being renewed in the power of the Holy Spirit and the sinners resurrected from their graves of sin, adopted into God’s redeemed family, and their names written in the Lamb’s Book of Life.

Now I know there are some Christians who expect nothing more at this late hour than for the wrath of God to be poured out in judgment on the wickedness of America. And that is surely what we deserve. But the voice of a God of love, not willing that souls be lost, is calling out to millions to repent and believe in Jesus before it is too late. Yes, our God of love is willing to forgive our sins and heal our land.

Why would our Sovereign Lord Jesus Christ not want to close out the Church Age with the greatest outpouring of the Holy Spirit of Revival in all of Church History?  And what more needy time for this great awakening than our new year of 2020!   Oh, let us pray that God will awaken His Church to realize that we have now reached that time when it is either revival or ruin in our nation. 

So, let us pray and believe God that concerned Christians from different denominations will come together to pray in one accord for all that our Lord knows we need for getting both saints and sinners ready for the coming of our Lord and Savior. Let us pray and expect the opening of the Heavens in this new year.